


And Their Teeth Shine Like Pearls

by Astalitha



Series: Orpheo Looks Back (Dragonverse) [1]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dragons, Dragon!Palpatine, Dragon!Vader, Father-Son Relationship, Gen, Sacrfice!Luke, Soul Bond, canon to AU translation, dragons are powered by their sacrifices, in which darth vader is a sad mecha space dragon, non romantic soul bond its not like that
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-12
Updated: 2017-04-12
Packaged: 2018-10-18 04:12:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,631
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10609035
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Astalitha/pseuds/Astalitha
Summary: His father's presence has been calling to him, covetous and hungry, and now the pull grows ever stronger. Vader's malice cocoons his fleet like a magnetic field. It's no good - Luke feels like a compass, a spinning needle in the force guiding him where he knows he needs to go.--All dragons need a Sacrifice, even if Vader is a dragon like no other.Luke is a gift.





	

**Author's Note:**

> If even one person reads this and wants to know more, I will be shocked. But please, if you want to know the context, please check out my ever growing [Dragonverse Tag](http://sohaliatalitha.tumblr.com/tagged/dragonverse-writing)

**_The Death Star_ **

Everything is on Luke now. He has two proton torpedoes, the force, and his friends at his back. Something has been picking off their fighters, but this time they're ready. Biggs and Wedge have got his back. They make the approach.

A spacecraft like no other comes screaming out of the black of space. Its body is long, and it twists like a desert lizard. It’s head looks to be plated with durasteel and it’s limbs are a mess of hydraulics and wiring. For a moment Luke thinks it's a ship built to look like a Krayt dragon, but no. Not built - that thing is alive - he knows it down to his bones.

It's alive, massive, powerful. For a moment, it seems like the single focal point of the whole galaxy. Luke has to force himself to keep his eyes forward, to not twist round in the cockpit. It snatches Biggs' X-Wing in its jaws, and flings him into the wall of the trench, where he bursts in a ball of flames.

Luke's movements slow with horror. Is there really some massive hand, crushing his shoulder with a durasteel grip? Is he really struggling for breath, like there's a hole in his throat? Han breaks him out of it over the comm, whooping and cheering. Luke shakes himself, closes his eyes for a moment. He breathes. The force is with him. Ben is with him. If he closes his eyes, reaches out... He fires his torpedoes.

 

 

_**Hoth** _

Skywalker is gone. Vader razes the base, turning ice into steam, and durasteel into molten slag. He tears through rebel after rebel, blood in his mouth, shining blackly on his mechanical claws.

Ozzel’s incompetence has cost them the bulk of the rebel fleet. But, wonder of wonders, there is a ship in the sky which he recognises, for his son is known to travel with its crew. And if his son is not with it, his friends will be - hostages. He tears after them. The newly minted Admiral Piett will follow his lead or bear the consequences.

He bursts out of atmosphere after The Falcon, yawing from side to side to avoid their sporadic bursts of cannon fire. Foolishly, the rebels plunge into an asteroid field, perhaps hoping to lose him. There is little chance of that, as he is infinitely more skilled in flight. He wheels after them, springing from dusty rock to dusty rock, sending gouts of flame after them whenever he can spare the oxygen.

He is moments from catching them in his claws when the sound of his comm brings him short - the emperor demands his presence, and will not wait. To abandon the chase is almost physically painful. The emperor will sense this sacrifice. It will please him. He leaves the capture of the rebels to his ships and their crews, and his wrath when his incompetent captains lose them is immeasurable.

 

 

_**Bespin** _

Luke flings himself from the gantry. He throws away his life, a sacrifice made to nothing, for nothing. Vader feels no satisfaction. Luke’s death would not be a gift. The gift comes later.

"Father," Luke whispers, like he is speaking the word for the first time.

Vader feels it in the force. It brushes against the edges of his mind, a gift, unasked for, unconsciously given.

 

 

_**Endor** _

Luke senses Vader before they touch the surface of the moon. His father's presence has been calling to him, covetous and hungry, and now the pull grows ever stronger. Vader's malice cocoons his fleet like a magnetic field. It's no good - Luke feels like a compass, a spinning needle in the force guiding him where he knows he needs to go.

At Bespin, his father said - "Give me your pride, give me your loyalty!  Join me and together..."

Together… Vader's promises had been wild and expansive.

Vader had been full of the mad avarice of a dragon, and Luke had wanted nothing to do with him. There's so much that Luke would choose to give him now. Luke wonders - what can he give his father, that will be enough to free him from the emperor's grasp? From the dark side?

 

Luke is fundamentally changed. The potential for power hangs around his shoulders like a cape, and his eyes are full of peace. His impatience is gone. Every word, every movement, is a tribute. Vader studies him, as they walk side by side, and goes stiff with dread. There is no dark niche for him to worm into. Even as his thoughts swell with pride, he knows his son is slipping beyond his grasp, he is sure of it.

But Luke offers him trust. He calls him by his old name, turns his back and holds his peace even when his father, an enemy by all rights, holds a weapon that could strike him down.

For a moment, it seems like it will be enough. But Luke will not turn. He will not be compelled in that way, and Vader does not have the power or the art to convince him.

And the Emperor's grip is too strong. Vader sees, now, with clarity. He is sure there is nothing that his son can offer him that will be enough to break Palpatine's power. And so he leads his son to Palpatine - another sacrifice made to his dragon. Another precious thing, torn away. Surely, with Luke in his grasp, Palpatine will be finished with him. He will devour Vader - or worse. He will sense the connection between father and son, and compel Luke to destroy him, to take his father’s power, as he had once taken _hers_...

Perhaps that would be better. Luke would be safe.

 

In front of the Emperor, his father is totally inscrutable. He is closed from all examination, either through the force or otherwise. He taunts Luke, pulling thoughts and images out of him that Luke doesn’t want to share.

There’s a lot Luke’s willing to give. But not these things - not his sister, his friends.

The Emperor’s laughter is like clamoring bells. Luke can feel death as it steals through the rebel fleet. He can sense Han, and Leia fighting for their lives and the hope of the rebellion. He has the power to end all this, to protect them from it all. He beats his father back with heavy blows. Dark knowledge comes to him through the force - he could snatch the power to defeat the Emperor from his father. He could reverse the flow, snatch back everything he has ever given his father - pain, pride, loss, fear, love. He could consume it all, and take the power of a dragon for himself.

The strand of their shared experiences stretches between them, bolstered by years of hunting for each other, by his father’s pride, his love. By Luke’s loyalty, his hope. Luke knows how he could grasp the string of power that ties them together and pull, consume. His father relents - collapses back.

Luke sees it then - or perhaps he is being shown - he sees the secret heart of Anakin Skywalker, who would give the world to anyone he loved enough, and how that fundamental truth has been twisted in the same way that Luke is being twisted now.

 _No_ , Luke thinks. _I won’t do it._

He can’t kill his father, can’t destroy him.

He has to save him. He would give his life to save him. He will.

 

His son will not take the power offered to him. He’d call it foolish, in anyone else, but somehow instead he sees only a victory. It’s something, at least, to know that Palpatine will never have his son.

His son, who has chosen death over corruption. Who has chosen to sacrifice everything, all for the belief that he can save his father.

He waits, ashamed to watch. He is too weak now to prevent the inevitable. What is the suffering and betrayal of one more loved one, in all the long years of suffering and betrayal that he’s wrought?

It’s a gift, perhaps, that Luke thinks he’s giving. Death, pain. Worse - Luke still has hope. His gifts settle between Vader and his Master like a shield. Bright with power, and love.

He sees it in his mind’s eye - two realities which overlap - one, in which he is weak and human. The other, in which he has immeasurable strength. It floods him - overpowering, bright beyond measure, deep like the gravity well of a massive star.

 

One moment there is pain, and the next, reality shifts. His father’s form is huge, like a krayt dragon, but somehow more. His hide is black, lined with pale, twisted scars. His jaws are massive, almost cleaving Palpatine in two. His father shakes his head like a predator with some small rodent.

His father is without prosthetics or breathing apparatus. His limbs have been cleaved away, and his scarred head is pale pink and waxy, like new growth. The man he had known as Vader is nothing but a heap of durasteel and electronics on the floor.

Luke sits, and pulls his father’s head in his lap, spreading his hand across the brow ridge. His father’s energy seems spent, and Luke can’t move him, so he stays. The floor judders, alarms blare. Luke ignores them.

His father noses at him, trying to push him to his feet.

“I’m staying,” says Luke, stubbornly. He swallows. “I wanted to save you.”

His father huffs, hot and dry, his eyes half lidded. He feels peaceful, if not happy then at least content. His breathing is growing labored now. Luke leans against his dragon-warm side, hot like stone baking in the desert suns. He doesn’t leave until his father’s breathing has ceased, and the flicker of his life in the force has faded.


End file.
